Grandma's Marathon 2007

In an effort to give up on shut down my Super Athlete site, I'm moving a few stories over here to A Lady Reveals Nothing. I wrote this email to my friends and family after having finished my second marathon, Grandma's 2007:

Well, I finished. Here are the official stats:

6980 People finished. I was 6388th.

2565 Females finished. I was 2251st.

My clock time was 5:39:19, but my actual chip time was 5:33:28.

These numbers are nothing to be proud of, but I told my nephew Miles that I won.

A couple of notable items:

• The female winner, Mary Akor, who is exactly my age (30), finished before I hit the half-way point.
• Last year when I trained for Twin Cities I logged a total of 314 miles. I finished that marathon in 4:53:01.This year, while training for Grandma's, I logged a total of 155 miles. (I wasn't able to train as hard due to some injuries laziness.)
• I got mentioned on KFAN on Friday. Not by name, but I was at Famous Dave's where they were broadcasing. Dan Barreiro and I were chatting and I mentioned that I had run Twin Cities and the last six miles were so emotional for me that I couldn't stop crying. I cried for the last six miles and couldn't stop. So, during his broadcast, he was talking about how runners always want to tell you about their bowel movements or gastrointestinal issues during the marathon. He said, "I just talked with a girl, who told me she blubbered the last six miles. She said she was sad, happy, emotional, in pain, feeling awesome, and it made her cry. That I can deal with. Tell me about that. Don't tell me about your poop problems." (or something to that effect.) If he only knew me, right? Also I met Chris Hawkey, he was running his first marathon and cohosts the KFAN morning show with Mike Morris. He was very nice and I actually got to have dinner with he and his wife and their kids as part of a larger group on Friday night.
• I got a signed copy of Dick Beardsley's book, Stay the Course. He set the course record back in 1979 I think.  2 hours 9 minutes! No one has ever beaten that record.
• When I got to the starting line I had to go to the bathroom, so I stood in line at a biffy behind about 40 people. When I finally got in there I tucked my sunglasses in my waist pack, and of course they fell on the floor. Right below the urinal. In a puddle of pee. Thank goodness I had a purell wipe or I would have had to throw them away.
• Entering the starting area was very surreal. There were 7500 people. People as far in front of me as I could see, and people behind me as far as I could see. This of course is when I jumped up and down to see, because just standing there I saw someone's back in front of me and someone's chest behind me. haha
• I ran the first six miles in one hour (or, 10 minutes per mile). So I definitely went out of the gate too fast - my overall average was about 12:47 minutes per mile.
• It was HOT. And SUNNY. The temp at the start of the race was 66 degrees and finished in the high 70's. I really like it to be in the 50's or maybe 60's for a long run.
• Burt Carlson is 81 years old. I saw him throughout the race, sometimes me passing him, sometimes him passing me. It was his 25th Grandma's, and his 287th Marathon overall. Still I felt like if I didn't beat him I was going to have to give up running forever. Well I did beat him. By like five minutes, too. Take that ya ol' sucker!
• I met Al Franken. I saw him along the course twice. The first time it was too late and I didn't get a chance to say hello, but the second time I saw him I was on the same side of the road as him. I introduced myself and we shook hands. That was pretty cool. I felt bad because his hands were like perfectly dry and soft and I was sweating like a pig, had rubbed vaseline under my armpits to prevent chafing, had wiped my sweaty nose (not the snotty part of my nose, but the sweaty part of my nose) a million times, had high fived about 500 runners, in other words my hands weren't clean. At all.
• I saw two ambulances, one lady down with people hovered around, another lady delirious and not able to put her shoe back on. I saw a guy running with the American flag, I saw a guy running backwards, I saw a girl with huge underwear over her shorts that said "granny panties". I saw two speed walkers. I saw a bunch of "50 staters" - guys who had run a marathon in all 50 states. It was such a fun, cool experience. I'm glad it's over though. A big Thank You to Marie M., who ran the entire race - every single step - with me and she never minded if I needed to stop and rest or stretch or whatever.
• My sister Kasey came to watch me, and she saw a guy whose shirt said "Phillipines". So she screamed at the top of her lungs "GO PHILLIPINES!" and then her husband Ben told her that his shirt actually said, "Phillipians 3:16".

Stop here if you don't like my potty humor stuff.

• On Sunday, the day after the race, Kasey and I went to the public hotel restroom quick and when we walked in were hit in the face with the most horrible stench you have ever smelled. We walked around the corner to find a pile of what looked like vomit on the floor of the first stall. Upon further inspection, it wasn't vomit at all. Somebody had to go number two and didn't make it. There was stuff on the floor, the toilet, everywhere. We went back into the hallway and informed a janitor, and he got on his walky-talky and we heard him say he had a "code brown" in the ladies room. How funny is that?